


Infinity Between

by Byacolate, mywordsflyup



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Abduction, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Trespasser
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2018-12-11 01:25:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 20,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11703897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Byacolate/pseuds/Byacolate, https://archiveofourown.org/users/mywordsflyup/pseuds/mywordsflyup
Summary: The Inquisitor has been taken. Dorian won't just sit idly by.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CaesarianConquerer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaesarianConquerer/gifts).



> Another commission for [justalittlemeenah](http://justalittlemeenah.tumblr.com) over on Tumblr. Thank you!

In the years since they put that giant sword in his hand and gave him a fancy title and a world full of responsibilities to call his own, Adaar has learned several ways of dealing with those who would wish him ill. It’s a side effect of war, he supposes. Being raised to leadership in a time when even basic decency was often difficult to find also meant that Adaar started out with more enemies than he could count. But even off the battlefield, he couldn’t throw a stone without hitting at least one person holding a grudge - be it because of his opinions on the war, his involvement at the Conclave or just his grey skin and horns. 

 

He’s learned many ways to deal with people like that - ways as varied as the people who taught them to him. The art of a smile and the right word at the right time from Josephine. That certain ruthlessness Leliana tried to install in him until the very last day. Knowing when to stand his ground and address a problem head-on like he’s seen Cassandra do so many times. This time, however, it’s something that the Iron Bull told him that slips into his thoughts as he walks down the wooden pier of Seere’s harbor. 

 

“You can usually tell when something’s about to go really wrong,” Bull told him a long, long time ago. Back when he still sat in the back of the Herald’s Rest - a sight as familiar as Cabot behind the bar and Maryden plucking away at the strings of her lute. “Your brain might not know it - might even actively tell you it’s not happening. But your gut always knows.” 

 

And for the first time in a long time, Adaar doesn’t know how but he just  _ knows _ . 

 

The smell of spices lingers in the air, cinnamon and cloves, even with the fresh breeze coming on from the sea. The last boats are coming in for the night, their nets heavy with fish and their fishermen thirsty for a drink in the nearest tavern. Adaar has only been in Seere for a few days but already he’s familiar with the sights and smells and routines of the town. But tonight, there’s something else.Tonight, something isn’t quite right. 

 

He looks down the darkening pathway, long shadows cast by the sinking sun. The lap of the waves against the wooden planks of the dock don't do overmuch to soothe him as he keeps his eyes sharp, senses keen.

 

The stroll was a short one - he'd only intended to find a few steamed pastries for Leliana and a trinket for Harding before returning to the inn. With briefness in mind, Adaar had left his arm behind to enjoy the lightness of a recreational stroll. He regrets it now as he reaches for the dagger in his belt.

 

Adaar lifts his left arm, hesitating only once he recalls the prosthetic on his bedside, phantom fingers brushing the crystal pendant beneath his shirt.

 

Not a board creaks in warning, not a single word is spoken, but Adaar turns just in time to see a flash of dark skin disappear behind a cart. One step to investigate is all the time he gets.

 

A loud crack rings out across the dying market. It isn’t especially alarming - nor is the thud flesh against wood, audible only to the vendors and patrons closest to the sea. It is a market, after all.

  
  
  


 

 

 

 

By the time Dorian gets home, it’s far too late for a proper dinner. With the servants gone for the day, the house lies still and empty. He stops by the kitchen to fetch at least something edible before going back to his study. He settles for what’s left of the bread the cook baked this morning, some cheese and a small bowl of grapes. Not exactly a feast but together with a glass of wine enough to sustain him for what he assumes is going to be a long night of work. 

 

After a long day of meetings and negotiations, there are many things he’d rather be doing than working on the final draft of his latest proposal to the Magisterium. But it has to be done. With Aurarius and Viren nipping at his heels like the old dogs they are, he can’t afford to slow down right now. 

 

He settles in at his desk, pushing stacks of paper aside to make space for his plate and goblet. With a flick of his wrist he lights the candles and then takes a sip of wine before getting started on the first list of corrections Maervaris sent him this morning. 

 

Adaar would scold him for missing sleep and food for work like this. 

 

The thought steals itself into his mind like it always does - especially at this hour. Without thinking about it, his hand reaches up to touch the crystal hanging around his neck, safely tucked into his tunic. For a moment, he considers it. But he knows that once he hears Adaar’s voice, no more work will get done tonight. He’s walked into that trap more than enough times before. 

 

Later then. He smiles - a small private thing in the safety of his own home. Knowing Adaar, he’s probably still up himself, working away on some important Inquisition business. Heeding his own advice has never been his strong suit. 

 

Time passes in a blur for the rest of the night. Dorian’s dishes lie forgotten upon the corner of the table as he sinks into his work, rousing from the desk only once the dying light of his candle winks out. He doesn’t even realize he’s fallen asleep between one word and another until something stirs him. 

 

He manages to tune himself from bleary to alert the moment he feels a breeze across his neck. With the barest whisper of his robes, he reaches across the desk in increments for his staff.

 

Dorian knows better than to leave a window open through the night. 

 

“Ah - that won’t be necessary.” 

 

Dorian’s fingers close around his staff and he buries his face in his folded arm, slamming it to the floor. Light erupts, flooding the room with its intensity. The infiltrator yelps. Swiftly, Dorian stands and throws a gust of force toward the sound of the cry.

 

His great-grandmother’s armoire shudders with the blast and a decorative iron vase falls to the floor with a teeth-shaking din, but when the light begins to dim, he finds no smear of man across the furniture. 

 

“My eyes… smart! Very smart.” 

 

Dorian turns on his heel and strikes out with his staff in the dark. It cracks against flesh, as evidenced by another yelp. “Really!”

 

“A spider crawls through my window,” Dorian hisses, shoving the butt of his staff against… nothing. Air. Eluded again. He turns his eyes to the side, magic crackling restlessly under his fingertips. “Am I not allowed to crush it beneath my heel?”   
  
“Spider! I am no spider.” Antivan. That’s the accent. Dorian places it, and the location of his would-be assassin across the room. “If anything, you could call me a crow. A spider, hah.”

 

A crow. Of course. 

 

Crack. His staff connects with something solid. A shoulder if Dorian has guessed the man’s height correctly. He whirls around and strikes again but once again hits nothing but air. 

 

“Not fond of crows, I see.” The voice is to his right, too close for comfort. 

 

“I happen to value my life too much.” 

 

“Understandable.” He hasn’t moved and Dorian think he can make out his shape in the dark. Slowly, he brings his staff around, readying his strike. “Good thing that I was sent by a bird of a different kind then. Although she does have a similar taste for dramatics these days.” 

 

The puzzle pieces fall together in his mind and that’s all the distraction the assassin needs. Dorian has just enough time to realize his mistake before he feels the man grabbing him by the front of his tunic. But instead of the expected dagger to the throat, he only gets his legs swept out from under him and the wind knocked out of his chest as he hits the ground. 

 

The ball of fire that springs to his hand is more instinct than calculated defense. In the flickering light, he sees pointed ears and a sharp smile before the man steps on his arm, firmly enough to make him dispel the fireball. 

 

“Shall we talk like civilized folk now?” 

 

Dorian scoffs. “Which part of this is civilized? Me lying on the floor or you breaking my family’s priceless heirlooms?”

 

“You would be surprised by what counts as civilized in some parts of the world.” 

 

Dorian huffs a sigh and lets the back of his head thunk against the floor. "Fair enough."

 

The pressure on his arm lessens before the leather boot slips away. Taking the hand extended to him, Dorian stands, knees creaking irritably with the shift. The dark shape before him heaves a contented sigh. 

 

“No. Shall we play at civilized folk and have some light?”

 

Bravado. Dorian respect a bit of bravado. With a flick of his wrist, several candles around the room come alight and cast the man before him in warm and flickering light. An elf looks back at him with a smile. 

 

With a jaunty wave and a little bow, the would-be assassin finally greets him. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Zevran Arainai, formerly of the Antivan Crows. Now, humbly, at your service.”

 

Dorian rubs the sore spot where Zevran’s boot stepped a moment ago. It will bruise in the morning, no doubt, but if it kept him from prematurely burning the man’s face off it was worth it. 

 

“I have heard of you,” Dorian says and steps over to the cabinet by the window to fetch a second goblet for his guest. 

 

“That sounds rather ominous.” Zevran’s smile doesn’t falter. He accept the wine when Dorian offers it but doesn’t take a sip until Dorian does. “Only good things I hope.”

 

“Oh, surely you wouldn’t want to be that boring.” In truth, the stories Dorian has heard, mostly during his time with the Inquisition, painted more than just a positive picture of Zevran Arainai. But in his experience people don’t need to be reminded of their wartime activities - no matter how heroic they might have been. 

 

Elves age more gracefully than most and Dorian finds Zevran to be an excellent example of that. Only a few lines around his eyes and mouth betray him but he still looks sharp, capable. Handsome as well, despite the ugly bruise that’s already started to form under his left eye - undoubtedly a souvenir from the butt of Dorian’s staff. 

 

“So,” Dorian says after another sip of wine, “I take it it was a nightingale that told you where to find me?” 

 

“From what I hear, she does not sing as much anymore these days. But yes.” 

 

“Yes,” Dorian echoes, tapping the side of his goblet with a finger. The tink of his golden rings against bronze captures the flick of Zevran’s eyes. “And what would she need of me?”

 

Zevran gestures with a flourish toward Dorian. “Straight to the point. A fine quality in a man, though perhaps a, ah, poor one in a politician.” The faint lines around Zevran’s face grow deeper as he sets the wine aside. “It is not a thing she wishes of you, but a thing you must know. You may want to sit down.”


	2. Chapter 2

The Inquisitor is gone. 

 

Only three days afore, Inquisitor Adaar disappeared along the shores of Rivain with his entire retinue but a skip and a hop away. This is the news Zevran brings, quickly taking the goblet from Dorian’s hand. The small part of him irked by the assumption that he could not keep firm enough a hold on his goblet is drowned in a powerful cocktail of panic, fury, and sorrow. 

 

“Where,” he starts, voice cracked as his fingers brush the sending crystal at his breast.

 

“Seere, as I said.”

 

“No,” Dorian says, clipped, waving him off as he nearly stumbles toward his dented armoire. “Where is my pack. My pack! I require only the essentials.”

 

“Why would that… ah.” Zevran clicks his tongue. “I see. I think there might be a misunderstanding here.” 

 

Dorian pries open the door. The wood is splintered and the hinges are all bent out of shape. “What kind of misunderstanding could there be?”

 

“The purpose of my visit was merely to inform you. Perhaps to advise you to take the necessary precautions in regards to security. Nothing more.” 

 

Thoughts are racing in Dorian’s mind. He wishes Zevran would stop talking. If he could only find a moment of quiet to make sense of it all. “What?” 

 

“Our mutual friend wanted you to get the news as soon as possible. That is why she sent me.” 

 

The contents of the armoire are in disarray. Most of the back wall is broken as well. In one corner, Dorian recognizes the dark grey of his travelling cloak. When he pulls it out, the fabric feels familiar, soft and worn. He runs his thumb across the stitching on the hem. He can still see Adaar sitting cross legged on the floor, a fine needle between his fingers and the fabric pooling in his lap. 

 

There it its. Something firm to hold on to. 

 

“If you think I am going to stay here I must have hit your head harder than I thought.” 

 

Dorian throws the cloak over his shoulders and clasps it at his throat before he finds his old and travel-worn pack at the back of the armoire. The handful of instances a new servant had thought to throw it out, to burn it or turn it into functionable leather, they all flash across his mind, and he thanks his lucky stars he never let them.

 

“What do you hope to do, Magister Pavus?”

 

“Hope to do?” Paying only the scantest attention to his companion, Dorian goes scrounging for his essentials - his sturdiest boots and riding leathers, the dagger Sera had given him on his nameday years ago. 

 

“Yes. Can you move especially swiftly?”

 

“I can bloody well haul ass when it counts,” he growls, slamming the poor abused armoire shut. 

 

“Hm, I think I got only a small taste of that just a moment ago.” 

 

Dorian turns around, irritation pricking somewhere at the base of his neck. Zevran looks at him, leaning back against the table with his arms crossed. In his face, Dorian finds an expression of… something. Something he can’t quite place. 

 

“I suspect you will not be foolish enough to try to stop me?” Dorian takes his staff from where it’s leaning against his chair. 

 

“And risk another black eye? Maker, no.” He cocks his head. “You’re determined.” 

 

“Of course I am.” 

 

With a little sigh, Zevran pushes himself off the desk. “Good. You have determination and what I expect is a ridiculous amount of money to spend. Both are important if you intend to travel quickly and hopefully without making too much of a spectacle out of it. Also, an Antivan who would be happy to guide you.” He take a small bow. “If you would have him.” 

 

Dorian blinks. He doesn’t know what he expected. Some kind of resistance. Certainly protest. 

 

“Well - yes. Good.” Dorian cinches his pack up. “I’ll need a guide. A decent one.”

 

“I am much more than a decent guide, dear Magister.”

 

Zevran exits through the window as Dorian leaves a note for his staff and another for Maevaris, and descends the stairs. He stops in the kitchen for provisions and feels himself paused for just a moment when he spots a squat and wax-sealed bottle of wine. It’s palatable at best, too sweet for his palate, but he always keeps a bottle or two for Adaar when he…

 

Dorian strides from the pantry toward the back. 

 

The stables of his estate are compact, fit for two steeds and no more. Dorian has never owned a horse of his own, and thus has never himself used it. Even so, Zevran greets him in the moonlight from atop one horse, and holds in his left hand the reins of a second.

 

“I don’t suppose you simply happened to bring two horses straight from Antiva,” he grunts, hefting himself up on top of the second horse. Even at night, Zevran’s grin shines brightly.

 

“Oh, certainly. And it is also true that I am too morally upright to abscond with your neighbor’s mare.”

 

“He would certainly survive the loss.” It’s been awhile since Dorian had need of a horse at all. He spends most of his days in the city where his own two feet are more than enough to get him where he needs to go. 

 

He’s prepared to lead the way out of the city but Zevran seems to know the path just as well. Perhaps there’s more truth than he thought to the stories of Antivan crows working within Tevinter, even if every self-respecting Magister would never admit to make use of their services. 

 

It’s only when they’ve left the city behind them that Dorian realizes how much he needed a breath of fresh air. With an empty road ahead and wide open fields ahead of them, he feels like he can breathe again - for the first time since Zevran broke the news. 

 

The panic is still there, clinging to his chest with ice-cold fingers. But at least he’s doing something. At least he’s moving. 

 

“We should ride fast for as long as we can,” he tells Zevran and urges his horse forward without waiting for a response, out into the night. 


	3. Chapter 3

From Qarinus, the ride east is a straightforward path. All of the towering Tevinter mountains lie in the south, and the only obstacle in their path is the Arlathan Forest. 

 

“If we ride hard enough,” Dorian pants, dipping his hands into a brook upstream from their drinking horses in the early afternoon, “we ought to reach the forest in four days.”

 

“Four?” Zevran laughs a jovial note and screws the cap back onto his ornate water flask. “No, you see, there is a farm, say… two days east. A farm with a stable famed for its fleet-footed racing steeds. No, my friend, I do believe that it will take us only three to find Arlathan forest.”

 

“Oh. Well.” Dorian splashes his face and drags a wet hand through his hair. “I have always wanted to be a prolific horse thief.”

 

They leave his neighbor’s horses behind like a poor consolation prize and the stable vanishes behind them on the Western horizon before the sun rises. 

 

They take only short breaks - more for the horses’ benefit than Dorian’s. Whenever they stop for water, food and sleep, Zevran falls asleep almost immediately with one hand close to his dagger and seemingly not one troubling thought on his mind. 

 

Dorian is not an idiot. He knows he needs sleep, even if every fiber of his being detest the thought of rest while Adaar is in danger. Maker, he’d be the first to scold him for his restless pacing. 

 

They reach the forest within three days, just like Zevran promised, and make camp in the shade of the treeline. 

 

“Do not look so worried,” Zevran says when he notices Dorian’s skeptical glances at the maze of tall trees and the thick underbrush. “I know a way through.”

 

Dorian doesn’t put too much stock in any stereotypes in the keen forest sense of elves; Sera disabused him of any notions he might have entertained given the lore of the Southerners, and apparently even being revered and feared as a god Solas could only find his way in dreams. 

 

But Zevran doesn’t lead them astray. He seems perfectly comfortable in the fore, following along a stream to the east. In his own personal opinion, the Inquisition never made good use of their cavalry’s worth of steeds. One charming anecdote he keeps locked deep, deep in the recesses of his mind is an eve upon the third week of their time in the Emerald Graves when he removed his boots for the night to discover that his calluses had calluses.

 

Devastation had led him to flop back against his bedding, arm slung over his eyes. 

 

‘I’ve become a golem,’ he had moaned as a hand circled one ankle, lifting Dorian’s foot into a lap. The warm-cool wash of a healing spell had seeped into his foot as Adaar massaged him to the ball of his foot to the knuckles of his toes. 

 

‘Filthy,’ he’d admonished, but softly, and with little complaint after Adaar had tended to both of his feet and come to lay beside him.

 

‘You didn’t remove the calluses,’ he’d muttered, pulled in close to Adaar’s chest. ‘You’d have needed a chisel, or an axe.’

 

‘You’ll thank me tomorrow,’ Adaar had said and Dorian had thought he could feel the hum of his laughter all the way to his deepest core. ‘If I healed them you’d only get the same callouses over and over again. This way your feet will get used to it. Over time.’

 

‘A terrifying thought.’ 

 

He’d been right of course. His feet did get used to it. And every night at camp, Adaar had taken away his aches and pains and replaced them with nothing but warmth and reassurances. He had known back then that his feet would never look the same but had found that he didn’t really mind all that much. 

 

‘Look what you’ve made of me,’ he had told Adaar, more often than once, gingerly prodding the scars and callouses those weeks in the Emerald Graves had left him with. 

 

‘Beautiful as ever.’ 

 

Dorian had laughed and accepted the kiss that followed but in his heart he had known that there wasn’t an inch of him that hadn’t been changed since he had met Adaar - that hadn’t grown and blossomed into something more than he could ever have expected. 

 

If that came with callouses… he could live with it. 

 

“You seem lost in thought.”

 

Dorian rouses himself from the dreamy mire of his memory to refocus on Zevran. The campfire in their makeshift pit by the stream crackles when Zevran tosses another branch in. 

 

“Yes,” he murmurs, folding his hands in his lap. “I believe I was.”

 

“I understand.”

 

Dorian’s eyes flick toward him from the dancing flames. “Do you?”

 

Zevran looks toward him with a charming smile. “Be careful, Magister. Start me talking about myself, and you won’t be able to stop me. We have other matters at hand that deserve our attention, wouldn’t you say?”

 

Dorian opens his mouth, a comment about the advantages of distractions on the tip of his tongue, but he swallows it down and sighs. The fear that sits deep in his gut like a smoldering piece of coal won’t go away just because he tries to drown himself in someone else’s sorrows. 

 

Zevran pulls out the map, just like he has during every rest they’ve taken. It’s an old thing and way too large and unwieldy for use in the field but Zevran seems to be happy with it. He traces the route they’ve taken through the forest for the past two days and nods to himself. 

 

“We’re making good time.” 

 

Dorian can’t help the scoff that escapes him but Zevran only gives him a little smile. 

 

“The only faster way to travel would be flying, Magister Pavus. And I fear that is beyond our capabilities.” 

 

Dorian pulls his cloak tighter around himself. “My quarrel is not with you but with the limitations of space and time.” 

 

“A popular complaint, I believe.” 

 

They eat a perfunctory meal of dried goods from Zevran’s pack and Dorian’s alike, and settle down for a restless but necessary night of sleep. Naturally, Dorian does not have it in him to descend quite so quickly. His mind is ablaze with his thoughts and his fears, a simmering, heart-consuming panic ever present at the surface of his thoughts.

 

“What shall I tell you to ease your mind?” comes Zevran’s voice an arm’s length away. Dorian closes his eyes, blinding himself of the stars that peer back from above.

 

_ Of my husband’s safe return,  _ he swallows down. 

 

“Tell me everything you know about the disappearance. I’ll even take your speculation.”

 

Zevran has little more to add to the barest of facts, but he does have plenty of speculation.

 

“The proximity to Kont-aar is a little suspicious, is it not?” 

 

Dorian turns his head. In the darkness he can only make out the vague shape of Zevran. “Is that your theory?” He’d have to lie if he said he hasn’t thought about it. Adaar and the Inquisition do not have many enemies in Rivain. And none that would be so bold as to kidnap the Inquisitor himself. 

 

The relationship with the Qunari, on the other hand, has always been strained at best. Adaar’s continuing loyalty to the Iron Bull and the events at the Exalted Council a few years back did not help that situation. And with Kont-aar as the last Qunari settlement on the continent, it would stand to reason that they’d take Adaar there. 

 

If the Qunari were behind this, that is. 

 

“What would the Qunari have to gain from this,” Dorian asks into the darkness. Nowadays, Adaar’s political significance is mostly symbolic more than anything else. A strike against him would certainly anger most of his allies but other than that Dorian fails to see any reason why the Qunari should do something like this now. 

 

At his side, Zevran’s laughter is quiet and dry.

 

“I knew a Qunari once,” he muses, idly drumming his fingertips over the leather of his jerkin. “I could not say I ever knew what went on in his head. I could hazard a guess, but I fear it would not help us much at all.”

 

The night is warm - too warm to slip inside his bedroll, though Dorian feels more comfortable with that thin barrier between himself and the elements. The distant cry of birds and rustling leaves fills the void in conversation. The creatures of the forest of Arlathan are far different than those found in the south. Apropos of nothing at all, he quite misses the sound of owls.

 

“Whoever it was, they caught him off guard, and they overpowered him,” Dorian says - the one thing he’s sure of. 

 

“Strength and stealth can be a deadly combination.”

 

Once upon a time, he would have had a hard time imagining a Qunari attacker being stealthy. Growing up in Tevinter installed a certain image in his mind. Raging hordes swinging axes as big as they were. All raw strength with no subtlety. A dangerous and foolish misconception - one that nowadays makes him bristle with annoyance. 

 

But still… There’s something off about this. 

 

“He had no guards with him,” Dorian says after another moment of silence. 

 

“As far as I know.” 

 

But it wasn’t a question. Dorian knows Adaar well enough to be able to imagine the scene. Him alone on one of his evening strolls. Perusing the stalls of some market on the search for herbs or local food or, more often than not these days, some token he’d send to Dorian with a heartfelt note attached to it. 

 

_ This made me think of you.  _

 

His house is filled by now with Adaar’s little gifts - each one cherished in their own way. He knows he’ll find one of his latest presents in his pack: a pair of soft leather gloves that Adaar picked out for him on a market in Dairsmuid.

 

A knot in his throat the size of a fist wells up.

 

“For no one to notice, it must have been a swift attack. Subtle,” he says, clearing his throat. Zevran makes a thoughtful noise.

 

“Perhaps. Perhaps he was persuaded to follow.”

 

“Certainly not.” Dorian lifts a hand, physically waving the thought away. “The Inquisitor is a brilliant, thoughtful man. He makes his decisions with care - even the rash ones. He has been ambushed before, you know.”

 

Zevran makes a noise, not quite amusement but something close to it. “I have seen very smart getting fooled before. With the right incentive…” 

 

“Not him,” Dorian says, a little more forcefully than before. 

 

“They came prepared, in any case.” Dorian can tell Zevran is trying for a more diplomatic tone and if in a different place, at a different time, he might have been able to appreciate it. “The question we should ask is who knew he would be in Seere?” 

 

Dorian had the same thought before. After all, it’s not like the Inquisition announces its travel plans to the world. There was a time when a little more fanfare was useful but nowadays Adaar keeps a relatively low profile. As much of a low profile as he can anyway. 

 

Adaar never liked it - the spectacle of it all. In all his years as Inquisitor, he never quite got used to it. Never lost that slight discomfort Dorian had been able to detect that very first night at the Winter Palace. Another memory he keeps tucked away for safekeeping. 

 

The way his hands had been shaking, even when he had placed one on the small of Dorian’s back. How he had come to see him in the gardens as much for his own comfort as for Dorian’s. 

 

“Never was a fellow more in demand,” Dorian murmurs, reaching up to the crystal at his throat. “Nor one expected to approach his affairs with the appropriate fanfare and discretion.”

 

“I might know a little something about that,” Zevran says, lightly. “This is good, yes? To occupy one’s mind with wild running theories.”

 

“Well it certainly isn’t going to politely keep still.”

 

There’s a breath of amusement so quiet, Dorian might as well have missed it.

 

Sleep finds him somehow, though restless and pocked with uneasy dreams.


	4. Chapter 4

They cross the border to Antiva right as they leave the shade of the forest behind, riding out into bright sunlight. Zevran takes a deep breath and sighs. 

 

“Does the air not smell sweeter here?”

 

Dorian doesn’t respond as he shields his eyes against the sun with one hand. A sea of tall grass stretches out in front of him but there’s a dry wind coming from the South, telling tales of the Drylands. He tries to recall this part of the map. 

 

“There’s a city up ahead?” 

 

Zevran nods. “Brynnlaw. We should take the opportunity to work on your career as horse thief. But we’d be smart to stay on the outskirts and move on quickly.” 

 

The sun has just set behind the horizon on the next day when they see the lights of Brynnlaw in the distance. Even from afar, Dorian can see the fires lit in the watchtowers around the city, like lighthouses in an ocean of grass. 

 

It isn’t until Zevran halts his horse that he realizes that something is off. 

 

“They have lit the beacons,” Zevran says, narrowing his eyes. 

 

“I take it that is a bad sign?” 

 

“Not necessarily. Curious, perhaps. They were built for wartime but I have seen them lit for all kinds of reasons.” 

 

“Why would they…” Dorian clicks his tongue. “Ah.” 

 

Zevran shoots him a look. “Let’s not jump to conclusions, Magister Pavus. But if news has really spread this far, it would be wise to listen in for a moment, I think.” 

 

They stick to the original plan, keeping some distance to the city as they take the Southern route around it. When they make camp on the side of a grassy hill that shields them from prying eyes, Zevran takes both their horses and leaves Dorian with only their packs and a smile. 

 

It’s fully dark by the time Zevran disappears into the shadows, leaving Dorian to his own thoughts. 

 

That feeling of dread he’s been pushing down for the entire journey comes creeping back, gripping his insides like an ice-cold hand. Getting any kind of information would be valuable but some part of him knows he isn’t ready for the kind of information Zevran might bring back. 

 

Whatever happened, Adaar is still an important figure. In the right hands, certainly a valuable bargaining chip. Surely they wouldn’t dare to harm him. Surely they wouldn’t dare to…

 

He feels his throat closing up and forces himself to take a deep breath. His hand reaches for the sending crystal, still tucked away under his tunic, even though he knows there is only silence on the other hand. 

 

Another deep breath. 

 

Perhaps he should have gone with Zevran. By himself, his thoughts wander, turn dark and hopeless. 

 

_ Breathe.  _

 

If he breaks down now he’s not sure if he can get back up again. 

 

He only hears Zevran coming back when he announces himself.

 

“I would not want to sneak up on you again,” he says as he steps into the light of their campfire, leading their horses by the reins. 

 

“I would hate to give you another black eye,” Dorian agrees but he thinks his tone must have given him away when Zevran gives him a soft pat on the shoulder as he passes him. 

 

“The beacons were not lit for our missing Inquisitor. It seems word about his disappearance hasn’t spread this far yet. If it has at all.” 

 

They set into Brynnlaw on horseback, and within the city walls Dorian talks his way into more local gossip and rations as Zevran conveniently loses their horses and absconds with two more. Dorian doesn’t know how he does it.

 

“The stable hand was young,” Zevran says, handing Dorian the reigns to a horse nearly identical to the one left in the stables. “And in his youth, easily distracted by the flattery of a handsome older man.”

 

“Not terribly much older,” Dorian simpers, and Zevran wags a finger.

 

They make their way out of Brynnlaw in the dead of night at precisely the pace two might take were they in a bit of a hurry, but certainly and in no way attempting to flee. 

 

“What did you learn from the chatty barkeep?” Zevran asks once they are far enough from the beacons to ride more swiftly east.

 

“Are you interested in the latest scandal of Brynnlaw’s elite? Or the city’s recent squabble with the nearby Dalish clan?” Dorian tries not to let his frustration shine through too much. 

 

“What did you hope to hear?” 

 

Dorian looks straight ahead on the moonlit path in front of the.  _ A miracle _ , he thinks.  _ Of my husband’s safe return. That all of this was nothing but a misunderstanding.  _

 

“I don’t know,” he says. 

 

“In this case, I think no news might not be the worst news,” Zevran says, his tone a little softer than Dorian has heard it so far. 

 

Dorian sits up a little straighter in his saddle, swallowing down the disappointment for now. “Perhaps.” 

 

“It makes me think, however,” Zevran continues after a moment. “If the Qunari were truly behind the Inquisitor’s disappearance, I would think the news would have spread by now. After all, they are nothing but not efficient.” 

 

Dorian doesn’t know if it’s a line of thought he wants to follow, but tucks it deep within for consideration. 

 

He holds his tongue for the next hour’s ride, buffering Zevran’s idle chatter with monosyllabic responses until they come upon a stream for respite. Dorian’s mare bends to drink as he fills his water skin upstream. 

 

“Unless,” he starts, brow furrowed. Zevran looks up from his own flask.

 

“What was that?”

 

“No, I was only thinking of our earlier speculation. If we  _ are _ to speculate on the matter of Qunari, then perhaps… we might consider that their message would not be meant for all of Thedas. Perhaps their targets are few, if indeed they are at fault. I remain skeptical, you understand.”

 

“Of course.” Zevran closes his flask and stands back up. “Who would be the target then? The Inquisition?” He pauses for a moment. “You?” 

 

His flask has long been filled but Dorian doesn’t move, the cold water running over his hands. He keeps his eyes on them but looks straight through them, the rushing sound in his ears not coming from the stream alone.

 

Now there’s a thought. 

 

After all these years of working in the Magisterium, making enemies and fighting for what he believed in. After numerous attempts on his own life. More threats than he can count. Had someone finally decided to plunge in the knife where it would truly wound him?

 

When he looks up, he finds Zevran looking genuinely worried for the first time since leaving Qarinus. “Whatever the reason,” he says, “you cannot blame yourself.”

 

Dorian stands up and dries his hands on his cloak. “I happen to be very experienced in that.”

 

“No doubt.” Zevran leads his horse away from the stream. “All the more reason not to jump to conclusions. We won’t know for certain until we meet up with our mutual friend. She expects us at the border. Or… one of us, at least.” 

 

Dorian lifts himself onto the back of his own horse and leads her toward the path Zevran carves up ahead. 

 

“What’s this?” he says, halting for Zevran to mount his horse. “Do you intend to lose me in the forest?”

 

“I would not dream of it.”

 

Dorian already has his face turned towards the open road ahead but he's sure Zevran can see his smile, weak and tired as it is. “No? That’s a relief. I imagine that would be rather easy to do.”


	5. Chapter 5

That night, after many long hours of riding, Zevran leaves Dorian to set up camp as he goes for a hunt, confessing that another meal of dried and bitter fruit from southern Tevinter would drive him to lunacy. 

 

Finding wood consumes the greater half of an hour, though starting the fire is but a flick of his wrist. The stream down the hill with the horses is little more than a trickle, inaudible over the faint crackle of the campfire. When Zevran finally returns with a couple of red forest squirrels, the bedrolls are settled over the least offensive patches of dirt.

 

Dorian has had worse meals than squirrel and Zevran keeps a small pouch of spices in his pack - a practice Dorian wishes the Fereldans had adopted before he was forced to survive for weeks on their bland rations alone.  

 

“Ah, this is better.” Zevran lets out a content sigh after his last bite and stretches his legs out in front of the fire. 

 

“I’m glad we could finally meet your culinary standards.” Dorian finishes his meal. He hasn’t felt particularly hungry despite the strenuous journey. There’s a knot in his stomach that hasn’t gone away since Zevran told him of Adaar’s disappearance. But he knows he’d be no use to Adaar if he fell off his horse, too weak and malnourished to even attempt a rescue mission.

 

Rescue. 

 

He hasn’t let himself think about the end of this journey too much. The details of what he might find. 

 

“I think I would welcome some distraction this evening,” Dorian says. “Tell me of your travels.” A hint of desperation has crept into his voice when he wasn’t looking but if Zevran notices he doesn’t let on. “If you’d rather not…”

 

Zevran picks up a stick to stoke the fire a bit, keeping his eyes on the flames. “We had many bad nights during the Blight,” he finally says. “Nights like this one. Quiet. I always thought they were almost worse than the actual fighting. When you’re just alone with your thoughts.” 

 

“On the precipice of disaster.”

 

Zevran nods. “Yes. Something like that.” He smiles. “One member of our group always seemed to be able to tell. A talent, I assume. Just when you’d resigned yourself to your own dark thoughts, she’d pick up her lute and start singing. Or told us some wild tale. In the morning, our problems would still be there. The war and the darkspawn and all the unpleasantness. And we still got up to fight.” A scorched log in the fire cracks, sparks flying up into the night sky. “Allowing yourself not to think about the impending doom for a while doesn’t mean you’re any less committed.” 

 

Zevran looks at him from across the fire and holds his gaze for a moment. Slowly, Dorian takes a deep breath. Then, he nods. 

 

Zevran has many tales to tell. The ones he seems to enjoy the most all feature the Warden. It’s a little strange to hear such human stories about someone who Dorian only knows like an ancient legend. Whose name has become so much bigger than the person Zevran tells him about in his stories. 

 

To think the Warden had just been a person once, eating the same bland Fereldan food as Dorian. Trudging through the same Fereldan mud and the sleeping on the same hard ground as him. Sitting around a campfire with their friends and listening to songs and stories to keep the nightmares away, just like him. 

 

He supposes, many people feel the same way about Adaar now. A title and tales of heroism and behind that… a man who’d pull Dorian’s feet in his lap and soothe his pains and aches. Someone who wrinkles his nose whenever he’s fully engrossed in a book he’s reading. Who likes his wine sweet and only sleeps on the left side of the bed and who still collects seeds from all over Thedas for his own garden.

 

He turns his head away from the flames to press a knuckle to the damp corner of his eyes. If Zevran notices, he says nothing. 

 

“I’m thinking you know something of what I mean, with your hero.”

 

“My hero?” Dorian does not  _ sniff _ . 

 

Elbows to his knees, Zevran leans to rest his forehead on a fist. “Who do you think I speak of?”

 

“I know of whom you speak, good sir,” Dorian says with an arch of his brow. “I only think it speaks to your perception of yourself and your hero. Who do you think  _ I _ speak of?”

 

Playfully, Zevran narrows his eyes. “You cannot catch a crow in a web of his own devising. My hero is quite apparent to us both.” He turns his eyes toward the fire and the flames dance over his dark skin. “Yes. Once or twice in this life, it falls to us to exercise heroism for those meant for greatness. Our success is imperative in these moments, is it not?”

 

“I’m afraid I wasn’t born for heroism,” Dorian says. “Not even heroics. I know, my dashing looks can be deceiving.” 

 

Zevran has the grace not to roll his eyes at that. Instead, he stokes the fire again. “None of us were born for it, I think. That might just be the point.” 

 

“Some more than others, it seems.” 

 

“I have the feeling we will soon find out.” 

 

Dorian watches him for a while, silently wondering what would lead him so far from the one he once followed. A hypocritical question, perhaps. He remembers far too well the look on Adaar’s face all those years ago when he told him he’d go to Tevinter by himself. 

 

After all, Adaar was the one who inspired him to be more, do more. Even if it came with personal sacrifices. 

 

Something tells him, Zevran knows this all too well. 

 

“Well,” Dorian says into the silence, shifting down onto his elbows, “I think we ought to call it a night, don’t you? We have a long day of riding ahead of us.”

 

Zevran quips something in response, but Dorian barely hears it, nestling down for the night. His mind and his heart are elsewhere.


	6. Chapter 6

It aches. 

 

His chest - restless, sharp, sore. He remembers dragons, so many dragons. He remembers falling into the Fade, and he remembers falling out of the Fade, and he remembers Solas and the Divine and his body crashing to the ground time and time again. He remembers the feeling of Dorian’s palms on his neck before he mounted his steed for Tevinter. 

 

No ache is quite like this one. 

 

His mouth is dry - drier than dust, drier than trekking the Hissing Wastes without a flask of water, and his bones feel too large for his flesh. And it is hot. His blood is on fire, from the tips of his fingers to the nails in his toes. His tongue is heavier than an ox tongue, and his body is hot, too dry, grimy and sore. And he cannot open his eyes.

 

He thinks he speaks. Or maybe he screams. Or maybe no sound comes out at all. 

 

Time passes. Surely, it must. How much, he cannot say. When he tries to focus, tries to remember, things gets blurry. There’s a fog he cannot lift. When he thinks back, the pain has always been there. There has never been anything but this pain. How could there have been? 

 

Pain blossoms and billows behind his eyes like ink in water. 

 

He tries to focus again, hangs on to his thoughts to keep from drowning. If he lets go now, he knows he’ll sink. Places and names and faces and none of it stays.

 

Dorian. If only he could say his name. 

 

The taste of metal in his mouth, not quite blood but something far more vile. He swallows and it hurts. He tries to move his head and it hurts. 

 

The sun burns him. It’s too hot, too bright. He can feel his skin blistering. But when he opens his eyes, he world around him is dark. 

 

He tries to focus, but everything swims. The surface beneath him is solid and unyielding - earth? It hurts to move. It hurts to think.

 

Not even a guttural groan can be mustered from Adaar’s chest when somewhere nearby, the pound of footsteps against hard packed dirt comes to a halt.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


 

Riding hard across Antiva at its narrowest point, Dorian and Zevran reach the Rivaini border in the matter of a day and a half. They trade their mounts fair and square for a pair of stallions that the rancher insists will sprint across the coast in a way only Rivaini horses were meant to. 

 

When they set up camp for the night on the sand, Dorian can barely sleep for the heat. He drifts in and out, the sound of the waves conjuring up dreams of nights at the Storm Coast. Huddled together in their tent for warmth. The howling wind relentless and Adaar’s deep voice like an anchor in the dark. They’re an island in the storm. 

 

“We could be the last people left in the world,” Adaar tells him. Dorian shouldn’t be able to see his face in the dark but here he can and he lifts a hand to trace the line of his jaw. 

 

There are words on his tongue, a million questions, but before he can say anything, a hand on his shoulder gently shakes him awake. 

 

Dorian sits up with a start. He’s back in the heat, sand clinging uncomfortably to his skin. It’s still the middle of the night. Judging from how both moons are still high in the sky, it’s barely past midnight. The vast black of the ocean looms to the North. The waves sound nothing like the ones in his dream. 

 

“I’m afraid we need to go,” Zevran says and pats him on the shoulder one last time before getting up. “Our friends await us.” 

 

Dorian watches him walk over to the horse, both of them already saddled and ready for departure. On Zevran’s saddle, a large raven sits and cleans its ruffled feathers. Dorian doesn’t need to inspect the silver ring around its leg to recognize the bird. 

 

“Leliana,” he says and brushes the sand off his clothes. 

 

“It seems she knew we were here the minute we crossed the border.” 

 

“Of course she did.” 

 

When Dorian mounts his horse, Zevran ties a small piece of rolled parchment to the raven’s claw and lifts it to the sky. It takes off toward the east, a direction Zevran and Dorian are quick to follow.

 

They ride through the morning, resting only for food and to water the horses near midday. If Dorian expected to be met by someone along the journey - a scout, or a retainer, or Leliana herself - he is mistaken. They see no one save a sparse handful of fisherman and an elderly sage communing with the sea.

 

“We are close,” Zevran calls above the sound of the surf and the pounding of hooves in the sand. “I think.”

 

Dorian eyes the growing shape of a city on the horizon as he has been for the larger part of an hour. 

 

When they are close enough for him to make out the shape of guards on top of the city wall, Zevran slows his horse to a trot and finally halts altogether. “Seere,” he says and nods towards the city. “A smart choice.” 

 

“And why is that?” Dorian feels impatience prickling at the back of his neck. 

 

“Leliana and I went there once. After the war.” Zevran smiles as if at a private joke. “To see off a friend. The city’s merchants have managed to keep alliances with both the Qunari in Kont-aar and the Vashoth in the area. Unofficially, of course.” 

 

“Not the most stable alliances, I would guess.” 

 

“Now where would be the fun in stable?” Zevran makes a contemplative noise. “If Qunari were involved in the Inquisitor’s disappearance, someone in this city would have information. And in my experience, that’s usually were we can find Leliana.” 

 

It takes them the better part of an hour to reach the city gates. For the first time, Dorian realizes how they must look - weary and dusty from the road, their horses just as tired as he feels. It makes them inconspicuous at least as they easily blend in with the other travellers and merchants making their way into the city. 

 

The salt in the air is more potent here, like fresh fish. The scent is familiar to Dorian after so much travel, and though the tang is not pleasant by far, it conjures memories of… different times. Neither softer or harder, but different, when the looming threat of Corypheus and the Veil met nights in wind-soaked inns and feather down mattresses which dipped low under the weight of Adaar.

 

They had never visited Rivain together - acknowledged the possibility on the backs of their dreams. Dorian often dreamed of a future with Adaar. He still does. 

 

Even now, his extremities tingle, faint goosebumps prickling over his arms as he thinks - Here. It was here he disappeared. Did he meet that tailor with the turned up nose? That Qunari there, with the cart - did he treat himself to fresh balm for his horns? 

 

Dorian prefers this - emersion into a fantasy of the past, the faint wrinkles on his husband’s face deepening with his smile toward the square full of children, how he might have lowered one of his great meaty palms into the hands of a seer to tell his fortune. 

 

Surely someone in this city must have seen what happened. Surely someone must know. And then, another thought, darker and colder and sudden. 

 

Someone must be involved. 


	7. Chapter 7

Zevran pulls him out of it, fantasy and dread alike, with a soft pull at his sleeve as he dips into an alley behind the market place. It leads away from the sounds and colors and scents but Zevran seems to know the way well enough. 

 

After the hot midday sun, the shadows are almost too cool and Dorian pulls his cloak a little tighter around himself. The cobblestones underneath his feet are wet with something he doesn’t really want to think on much further. Judging from the smell of fish, they’re getting closer to the docks. 

 

The entrance to the tavern is so well-hidden, Dorian doesn’t think he’d have found it without Zevran. There’s no name above the door, just a withered wooden sign with a naked mermaid holding open a large clam. There’s something to be said about classy innuendo but before Dorian gets the chance, Zevran opens the door. 

 

It might be difficult to find, but apart from that, the place looks and smells like most taverns Dorian has been to in his life. Admittedly, he’s been to a lot. 

 

The room is fairly large with multiple tables and chairs, all greasy from time and use. Despite the early hour, there are already several patrons at the large bar in the back of the room. None of them look up when Dorian and Zevran enter. The man behind the counter, however, looks them up and down before gesturing towards one of the doors in the back. 

 

“Private function is in the back.” 

 

Zevran gives him a nod and wave before leading Dorian through the tavern and then through the wooden door. 

 

Dorian hardly notices Zevran shutting the door behind them as the picture before him sends him headlong into a well of nostalgia. Standing before a round and time-worn table, a familiar head of red turns to face him. She wears no cowl now, but Dorian can tell even so that her hair is cut precisely the same.

 

Despite the tired lines that circle her eyes, faint smile curls at the corners of her mouth.

 

“Dorian Pavus. It is good to see you again.”

 

Beside her, Scout Lieutenant Harding somehow straightens her perfect posture. She looks much the same, though the dark half moons below her eyes speak to more than he remembers ever seeing on her youthful face.

 

He recognizes several faces around the table; it would follow, of course, that Leliana would prefer those around her to have long been under the blanket of her trust - all but one, a woman sat at the other side with her boots propped upon the table. Despite the poor light and minimal space, she wears an austentatious hat upon her long dark waves of hair, and from what he can see, she is decorated quite masterfully in gold. There are no elves around the table, though that can hardly be counted a surprise given - well. It’s pointless to reflect upon such things now. 

 

“It seems you were right then, Leliana,” says the woman in the hat, making no move to take her feet off the table. “No holding back the Inquisitor’s husband.” 

 

Leliana gives her a look that hints at something more, a history of some kind. 

 

“I hope I didn’t make you lose a wager,” Dorian says, opening the clasp of his cloak and shrugging it off.

 

“Not enough money to cry over,” the woman says with a little wink. “A sated curiosity will make more than up for it.” 

 

On any other day, Dorian would have been happy to take the bait. This is a dance he knows all too well. Familiar ground, in a way. But exhaustion weighs on his shoulders like lead and seeing Leliana only fuels the anxiety he feels bubbling up in his chest. 

 

“Will you leave the man alone and greet an old friend instead, Isabela?” Zevran steps past Dorian and around the table. She takes her feet of the table for him, Dorian notices. When she hugs him, her hat slips dangerously to the left but she tips it back in place. The feather on it is almost long enough to brush the wall behind her. 

 

“Ah, introductions,” Zevran chips in with joviality. “Civilized society.”

 

“Civilized?” Isabela balks.

 

“Unless you two have met: Magister Pavus, this is Admiral Isabela, formerly of the Siren.”

 

“Presently of Siren the Younger,” the admiral says, pulling her arm from Zevran’s shoulder for a bow with flourish.

 

“And here I am, simply Dorian.”

 

“A magister of house Pavus,” Zevran adds. The way he greets Leliana is not nearly so ostentatious. Zevran gravitates toward her instead, this old friend, knocking his knuckles to her shoulder with an exchange of quiet half-smiles. 

 

“You will want to know what I know,” says Leliana, her eyes now turned to Dorian. Subtle, somber Leliana who paced above him in her crow rafters for years. Dorian steps forward with a nod. 

 

“Yes. Please.”

 

“He has exhausted me for what I had learned from you,” Zevran says despite the shift in mood. 

 

“We have learned quite a bit more since you left,” Leliana says and nods at Harding who rolls out a large map on the table in front of them. Dorian helps weighing down one of the edges with a mug and leans over it to see in the light of the candles. It’s a map of Rivain and in style and age not unlike the map Zevran was carrying around during their journey. 

 

“This is Seere,” Leliana says, tapping a marked point on the map. “We’ve sent out people to all major cities and settlements in Rivain and to some on the Northern coast of Antiva. If Adaar had turned up there, we’d know about it.” 

 

“You’re keeping the search here in the North?” Dorian asks. “Zevran mentioned the possibility of Qunari involvement.” 

 

Harding makes a face. “Suspicious Qunari activity is a term people like to throw around. We’re trying to keep an open mind.” 

 

“But we’re not ruling it out either.” Leliana traces the coastline until her finger reaches another mark on the map. “Kont-aar is too close to ignore.” 

 

“Would the Qun be this bold?” 

 

“It would be a… surprising move.” Leliana looks at him, her face as unreadable as always. “You have your doubts.” 

 

“I do.” 

 

She makes a contemplative noise. “That makes three of us.” Another nod in Harding’s direction who produces another map from underneath the table. It’s a smaller one, drawn on a piece of parchment. It takes Dorian a moment to realize he’s looking at a section of Rivain’s coastline. 

 

“Seere,” Harding says, pointing to the appropriate marking. “We found a second, smaller camp of Qunari not far from here to the West. Close to the coast but far enough into the hills to be hidden. We only stumbled onto them by accident on our way to Kont-aar. They only seem to move during night hours and none of the locals we talked to had even noticed them.”

 

“Tal-Vashoth?” 

 

“This close to the only Qunari settlement on the continent? Doubtful.” 

 

For a moment, Leliana hesitates. “You remember Dragon’s Breath? The Viddasala?”

 

As if he ever could forget. “She’s dead. She couldn’t be behind this now.” 

 

“No. But someone like her, perhaps. Someone who is part of the Qun but acting on their own authority. Another splinter group.” 

 

Dorian takes a deep breath. “That is a wild theory indeed.” 

 

“But not unrealistic,” Isabela suddenly chimes in. She leans over the map, the brim of her hat casting a large shadow over it until she takes it off with a dramatic sigh. “They have a ship anchored right here. I’ve been watching their movements for a few days now. They’re certainly getting supplies from Par Vollen. But doing their damndest not to cross paths with any of the ships from and to Kont-aar.” 

 

“That… is suspicious,” Dorian says after a moment. 

 

“Thought so.” 

 

“We have scouts watching their camp and Isabela monitoring their ship,” Leliana says. “And Bull is talking to some of his old contacts from Par Vollen. I’m hoping we’ll hear back from him by tomorrow.” 

 

Dorian keeps his eyes on the black dot on the map, marking the spot of the camp. It’s only charcoal on parchment. It can’t tell him if Adaar is really there. If he’s hurt. If he’s still… 

 

“No one has seen him? Not even…” He swallows hard. “There’s not a trace of him?” 

 

There’s a moment of silence. When Leliana put her hand on his shoulder it’s only the lightest touch. “We will find him.” 

 

Dorian knows they will. They must. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


Despite their copious and nigh overwhelming bouts of flirtation, Zevran does not disappear with Isabela when the sun dips low and disappears in the west. 

 

Isabela slips so silently from the room that Dorian has to wonder if she too was once employed under the Antivan Crows. He barely notices when she disappears from the table, only the creak of the door behind her leaving noise in her wake. 

 

Yet despite their potent fondness for one another,  Zevran remains at Leliana’s side, pouring over documents and maps. Dorian does much the same, reading over Leliana’s reports - pitifully few - over and over again until his eyes ache. He didn’t bring his reading spectacles - an oversight. Foolish, but not unreasonable given the circumstances.

 

A flagon set before Dorian jostles him from his wandering mind. He lifts his head from the cradle of a palm to regard Leliana… who, from a precursory glance about the room, appears to be the only one left.

 

“You were lost in thought for quite some time,” Leliana supplies, leaning a hip against the table. Dorian rubs at his aching eyes. 

 

“Was I? Felt like only a moment.”

 

“It usually does. I’m no stranger to… single-mindedness.” When Dorian makes no move to touch the flagon, she sighs and pour him a glass herself.

 

“I remember.” He takes the glass with a little nod. The scent of spices wafts up to him before he’s even taken his first sip. “Spiced wine?” 

 

“With honey. A treat for long nights spent in the service of the Inquisition.” 

 

It’s good. He tastes the cloves and cinnamon so typical for Rivain and something else he can’t quite place. It’s a little sweet for his own taste but he knows for certain Adaar would love it. Perhaps he does. This might well be one of the secrets he learned from his spymaster. 

 

The thought comes to him suddenly and when he sets the glass down, his hand is shaking. 

 

“I can’t take your fears,” Leliana says as she refills his glass. “But perhaps give you enough peace and wine to help you sleep tonight. You look like you are in need of it.”

 

“I will try not to take that as an insult.” 

 

The smile she gives him is tired but honest. She pours herself a glass and settles into the chair across from him. They drink in silence for a while before she speaks. “Someone very dear to me once went missing. I would not presume to compare it to your situation but… when I heard about their disappearance, I was ready to leave everything behind to go and search for them.” She runs her finger along the rim of her glass. “I had already packed and written a note for the Inquisitor.” 

 

Dorian raises an eyebrow and tries to remember if he’s ever seen Leliana in such distress during their time at Skyhold. “But you didn’t leave.” 

 

“No. They wouldn’t have wanted me to.”

 

Dorian takes a sip of wine and leans back in his chair. “Is this your way of telling me not to do anything stupid?” 

 

Leliana watches him over the rim of her glass. “I trust you not to do anything stupid.” She pauses for a moment. “You are smart, capable. And I believe we’re better off with you here.” 

 

Touched. He feels touched, and… relieved. 

 

“It is good to have a fully competent team at my back, I’ll admit.”

Leliana smiles, sipping from her own goblet. Dorian drinks in silence, staring at the report before him without really seeing. Leliana drops a hand to the table, fingers tapping rhythmically against the surface. The sound soothes, lulls Dorian into a state only furthered by the wine warmth in his belly.

 

“I will be honest with you, Dorian,“ she says quite suddenly. Through the knot rapidly forming in his chest, Dorian gives her a nod. Leliana reaches over and, perhaps for the first time in all the years of their acquaintance, she rests a hand on his shoulder. “The path is dark. But I have faith in our Inquisitor.”

 

The tight lines around Dorian’s eyes smooth themselves out. He does not touch her hand, but instead tightens his grip on the flagon. 

 

“I understand. Keenly.”


	8. Chapter 8

There is a room prepared for him upstairs and after another glass of wine, he lets Leliana show him the way. The room is on par with the rest of the tavern but distinctly cleaner - as far as Dorian can judge in the low light. 

 

His limbs feel heavy when he falls into bed, the exhaustion of the journey and the warmth of the wine finally catching up with him. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he’s aware that he’s facing the first night since Zevran broke the news to him by himself. He’s all the more thankful for the wine dulling his thoughts. 

 

He dreams of Adaar, as he has every night since leaving Qarinus, but this one might be the cruelest of them all. He slips into it and finds himself in the same bed he fell asleep in, the taste of cinnamon and cloves still on his tongue. The mattress dips under the weight of the man sitting on the edge of his bed. 

 

“Amatus.” Dorian reaches out for him, his arms heavy as stone. 

 

Adaar takes his hand, lifts it up to his lips and kisses his palm. “I’m here.” 

 

“They said you’d been taken.” 

 

Another kiss - this time to his wrist. The feeling of Adaar’s lips on his skin as familiar as breathing. “A misunderstanding. A mistake, nothing more. I didn’t mean to worry you.” 

 

Dorian wishes he could sit up but there’s a weight on his chest, pinning him down. “I came for you,” he says instead. “To search for you.” 

 

“And now you have found me.” 

 

He wakes with a start, his hand reaching out and finding nothing but air where Adaar sat just a moment ago. Streaks of sunlight fall through the dirty glass of the window. The air in his room is stale, too warm. His tunic and blanket are damp with sweat and he rids himself of both before stumbling to the window to open it. 

 

It’s still early. The sun has only just risen over the rooftops of the city but the temperature is already higher than Ferelden usually sees on its best days. Dorian takes a few deep breaths, leaning against the window frame. The dream clings to him like the taste of wine in his mouth. 

 

He’s not surprised that by the time he’s washed and dressed himself,  Leliana is already awake and working when he gets downstairs. Despite the early hour, she looks up as if she expected him - and judging by the breakfast and strong black tea waiting for him on the table, she probably did. Dorian passes over the fish baked in breadcrumbs and the small stuffed peppers in favor of the honeycakes with raisins and nuts and some of the figs with goat cheese. 

 

Leliana pours him some tea. “I received a raven from the Iron Bull this morning,” she says as she hands him the cup. “He should arrive before midday.” 

 

Dorian reaches for a smart response full of friendly vitriol but finds none. “His expertise is invaluable.”

 

“It is crucial,” Leliana agrees, sipping from her own mug. Scout Harding speaks across the room with a few of her people. Coordinating another search, Dorian can only assume. “Cassandra has written as well.”

 

Slowly lowering his mug, Dorian raises an eyebrow. “Has she?”

 

“Yes.” Her pink lips quirk up in a smile. “She insisted on coming, even though time is of the essence.” 

 

“Last I heard, she was reconciling old family business in Nevarra,” Dorian muses, swiping a crumb from the corner of his mouth. He manages to finish one honey cake and a pair of figs to keep himself upright, but has no appetite for more.

 

Leliana nods with an amused little exhale. “That is correct. She was due south this week, I believe. Now she is on her way here, to us. Hopefully, we will have found success without her.”

 

There’s a feeling of warmth in his chest, momentarily distracting him from the ever-present dread. “He certainly inspires loyalty.” 

 

“He does.” Leliana plucks a fig from the plate for herself. “If we let all our allies know we’d have an army here within the week.” 

 

Dorian doesn’t doubt it. The Inquisition wields less political power these days but that has done nothing to negate the love and loyalty Adaar has inspired over the years. Even when the heads of Orlais and Ferelden were posturing and complaining, the people never forgot what Adaar did for them. 

 

“Perhaps not the wisest plan of action.” 

 

“I’d be surprised if we had need of an army,” Leliana says before finishing her fig. 

 

A scout separates from the group in the back to whisper something in Leliana’s ear. Her expression remains unchanged. She’s been in this line of work for far too long to let her own face betray her. 

 

She gives the scout a nod. “Send a few more people to watch the path to Kont-aar. Just in case.” 

 

“Any news?” Dorian asks once the scout has left again. He fears his desperation comes through in the tone of his voice but if Leliana notices she doesn’t show it. 

 

“Nothing, I’m sorry. The night has been quiet. No movement.” She pauses for a moment when she sees the expression of Dorian’s face. “In our situation, I consider that to be a good thing.” 

 

Dorian understands what she means but it doesn’t stop the feeling of helplessness that is settling on him like a heavy blanket. 

 

There are more reports coming in as they finish their breakfast and then move on to discussing further strategy. Isabela saunters in a couple of hours later, looking just as sharp as she did the evening before - despite spending most of the night and early morning patrolling the coast on her ship. She steals the last of the figs and pours herself some wine. 

 

Zevran slips in last from whatever secret Crow business that kept him busy. He looks tired, with dark circles under his eyes, but perks up when Isabela offers him some of her wine. 

 

By the time the Iron Bull arrives, the sun is standing high in the sky and Dorian has already started to feel antsy. Sitting still and waiting is the last thing he wants to do. 

 

For someone his size, Bull has always been able to move silently if he wants to. Dorian only notices him when he ducks his head and steps through the door. There’s a comfort in seeing his large familiar form. Even more in seeing his smile. He hasn’t changed much. A few more scars perhaps but that was to be expected.

 

“Dorian,” he says, his voice as strong as the hand he puts on Dorian’s shoulder. “You must’ve bribed your horse to run this fast.”

 

“You know I can be very charming.” 

 

They share a smile before Bull turns to Leliana. He’s trained to hide his emotions even better than she is but Dorian doesn’t miss the way his smile falters for just a moment. “We should talk.”

 

“You have news?” 

 

Bull’s eye flicks to Dorian and then back to her. “Some good, some bad.” 

 

Dorian takes a deep breath, willing the panic down that starts welling up in his chest. When he gets up, his knees feel a little shaky. “No point in wasting time then. Shall we?” 

 

The three of them move to a smaller room in the back with only a table and a couple of chairs in it. Almost casually, Bull moves to the only window, looks outside and then pulls the curtains shut. 

 

“They have him?” Leliana asks once he seems convinced nobody from outside is listening in.

 

Another look to Dorian. Then, a short nod. “And as far as my contact knew, they haven’t transported him off the continent yet.” 

 

“So the Qun…”

 

“No,” Bull says, “none of this is official. There’s a reason why they stay away from all other Qunari ships.” 

 

“Another splinter group then,” Dorian says. “But what could they possibly want with him? They haven’t asked for anything.” 

 

Leliana crosses her arms. “Par Vollen doesn’t know about this?” 

 

Bull shakes his head. “If they did, we’d have a completely different mess on our hands.” He pauses for a moment. “There are some within the Qun who feel like war is… long overdue.”

 

“War with whom?” 

 

“Tevinter, mostly. And moving forward from there.” 

 

Dorian scoffs. “That’s hardly anything new.” 

 

“No, but the fervor of these guys in particular is. They want war but they don’t have the numbers for an outright attack. But with the right provocation…”

 

“Like abducting the Inquisitor?”

 

“Yeah. Something like that.” 

 

There’s a moment of silence and Dorian takes a deep breath. He has no reason not to trust Bull’s intel but there’s something there that doesn’t sit right with him. 

 

“Why are they keeping him hidden then? If the abduction is supposed to provoke some kind of reaction?” 

 

Bull is good at hiding his emotions. But he’s not perfect. Dorian feels his chest getting tight even before he speaks. 

 

“There’s something else,” Bull says.


	9. Chapter 9

He can move now. Not much, but enough. Enough that when he shifts his jaw, the grit of sand between his teeth jars him. He tries to swallow, but his tongue is thick, his mouth dry. When he coughs, it wracks his entire body, feels like he’s been scalded down to his chest.

 

When his arms shift over the hard packed earth, he feels soil, then sand. From the swollen feeling under his nails, he presumes they are caked with dirt. They are also the least of his problems.

 

Opening his eyes is a challenge - nigh impossible, his eyelids practically glued together with grit and dried secretions. It takes him a long painful moment, bit by bit, sharp pain mingling with dull. His body throbs with dehydration, heavy and lethargic, and when he finally opens his eyes his vision is swimming. 

 

As far as he can tell, between innumerable blinks and an attempt to focus that leaves his head throbbing, he’s lying in a tent. Too weak to turn even his head, he hopes to presume he is alone. 

 

Adaar drifts in and out of consciousness, so feverish with it that he almost doesn’t register the parting of the tent flap in front of him. Though his vision swims and he can’t quite focus, he is almost positive that the figure crouching before him is grey of skin. 

 

Something is said - surely not by him, with his leaden tongue and throat of glass - and a hand reaches out, waving under his nose. He smells something dull and bitter, strangely familiar that sparks bright and violent lights behind his eyes. This is all he knows.

  
  
  
  
  
  


 

 

“Qamek.” Dorian doesn’t know when he sat down. He just knows his knees are weak and his head feels like it’s filled with cotton. His own voice sounds hollow as he speaks. 

 

He knows of the poison. Of course he does. A story not just to frighten children but to warn against the very real dangers of the Qun. The lengths they’d go… 

 

“Yes,” Bull says. He’s made no move to come closer or comfort Dorian in any way but his voice sounds softer somehow. 

 

“They are torturing him.” Dorian looks up, tries to focus on anything other than the raw panic clawing at him. It’s not like the thought hasn’t crossed his mind during the long nights since learning of Adaar’s disappearance. He’s not a fool. He knew mistreatment was a very real possibility. But this is something else completely. 

 

“That is part of it, yes.” Bull chooses his words carefully and Dorian doesn’t miss the way his eyes dart to Leliana and then back to him. “But qamek is… more than that.” 

 

“They use it convert people?” Leliana’s face doesn’t betray her emotions but some of the color has vanished from her cheeks. 

 

Bull makes a sound, not unlike a scoff. “That is one way to put it. It’s the last resort for people who prove unwilling. For captured mages, it’s the only resort.”

 

“What will it do to him?” Both Bull and Leliana turn to look at him. He can sense their hesitation. “No point in sparing my feelings now. That won’t help him.” 

 

Leliana opens her mouth but Bull is quicker. “It will wipe his mind, his personality. Erase his memories. With enough exposure it will drive him to insanity.” 

 

“They want to make an example of him,” Dorian says. 

 

“That’d be my guess.” 

 

“Brutalizing the highest-standing representative of the Inquisition…” Leliana looks shaken. 

 

“Can’t think of a better way to antagonize the entire continent,” Bull says. “One little push and we’re at the brink of war.”

 

Dorian doesn’t know what to do with his hands. He reaches for his staff against the wall for the support, drawing the gaze of everyone in the room. 

 

“You planning to head out or fall over, big guy?” Bull asks, tipping his chin up. Leliana herself looks curious, and entirely confident in Dorian to respond in a manner most interesting.

 

With so many familiar faces so near, and such a visceral undercurrent of tension in the air, Dorian feels almost at home. It is only that which is most important in the world to Dorian that is missing.

 

“It’s a yes on all accounts,” he says, mustering up bravado as a most familiar cloak. The Iron Bull grins rakishly, patting at his barrel of a stomach. 

 

“Then we’d better get a plan, Red. This one has a habit of charging right in.”

  
  
  
  


 

 

Harding has a new map, drawn quickly but efficiently on a large piece of parchment that she lays out on the table. Dorian isn’t sure how much she knows about the state of things but he recognizes some of his own determination in the line of her set jaw. 

 

“I nearly forgot how impressive you scouts are,” he says, leaning over the map. “And how quick.” 

 

Once she might have blushed at the compliment but now she only gives him an honest smile before returning to the matter at hand. 

 

“We couldn’t get too close but this is the information we could gather. The Iron Bull’s insight into the way Qunari camps are organized helped to draw up this layout.” 

 

Bull leans back in his seat. “They haven’t changed the basic structure in over a century. They know what works.” 

 

Harding points out different structures on the map, explaining what they are and how the camp’s defenses have been set up. Most of it is highly technical, reminding Dorian of long strategy meetings during the war. He only cares about one mark on the map, a medium rectangle signifying a tent in the back of the camp. Harding has marked it with a small star. 

 

“They’re using the side of this hill as additional cover. If we come from up here, we’d be right at the tent where we believe the Inquisitor is being held. But we’d be easy to spot.” 

 

“An outright attack from the front of the camp would take too long,” Bull says. “We can’t give them the opportunity to run back and finish the job before we can get to him.” 

 

Dorian closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. 

 

Leliana leans over the map. “What about a distraction? Something big and loud at the front gate. Just long enough to distract them from us coming over the hillside here and getting him out.” 

 

“Assuming that we can smuggle him out.” Bull pauses and Dorian can feel his eyes on him. “He might be completely out of it. Or not able to walk. Or…” 

 

“Then we’ll kill them,” Dorian says, very aware that all eyes in the room are suddenly on him. “We take them from both sides. One party from the gate and one from the hillside.” He can see Bull opening his mouth to object and quickly continues. “I’ll carry him out myself if I have to.” 

 

There’s a moment of silence before Bull breaks into a smile. “Leave the heavy lifting to me.”


	10. Chapter 10

Nothing they had ever done for the Inquisition themselves was terribly covert. Silence and shadow was never the Inquisitor’s forte, and it was not meant to be; Sister Nightingale and her people were those such people suited to discretion. Those who stood quite literally at the Inquisitor’s side did so brazenly, strong arming through countless battles and factions really quite gracelessly.

 

As such Dorian has never had the opportunity quite like this moment to see the Iron Bull at his full potential as the former Hissrad. Though certain he could be quite stealthy, Dorian never knew how silent such a large fellow could be. 

 

(Bull’s footsteps are swift and soundless through tall dried grass as sand becomes soil becomes tall and tropical foliage and all Dorian can see is Adaar, feet bare, trying desperately  and failing to silently tiptoe across the stone floor of his loft. It was their first morning together. His arms were laden with breakfast piled high on a tray, and he nearly tangled himself in the fluttering curtains in his preoccupation to set it all out to cool on the balcony. Dorian watched it all through cracked eyelids, tucking his smile into Adaar’s blankets.)

 

The Iron Bull effortlessly, silently maneuvers his way over a tangle of knotted roots, lowering a hand from the top to haul Dorian and Zevran over. Dorian was quite sure Zevran needed very little help to climb, but he could hardly blame a man for indulging in an opportunity to be swept off his feet by the hand of a very large man.

 

It’s still dark, the sunrise several hours away. Dorian knows that there are two other groups like theirs making their way over the hill towards the camp, one of them led by Scout Lieutenant Harding. He’s fairly certain he wouldn’t see any of them even if it was daytime. 

 

They reach the top of the hills and Bull motions for them to crouch behind some bushes to shield them from view. They sit for a moment, Bull’s head slightly cocked as he listens into the night. It’s only when his heartbeat and breathing have slowed down a bit that Dorian hears noises in the distance. 

 

It’s quiet, just a few voices carried over by the wind coming in from the coast. He can’t make out any of the words but they have to be close to the camp now. After another moment, Bull nods and they slowly move out of the bushes and down the slope of the hill. They stay low to the ground and Dorian strains his eyes trying to look out for the precipice Harding described to them. If he fell and broke his neck he wouldn’t be able to help anyone. 

 

Next to him, Zevran makes a sound, like clicking his tongue. Silent enough to not give them away but enough to get Dorian and Bull’s attention. He points towards somewhere to their left where a knobbled tree stands a little crooked. Silently, they follow his direction, leading them to the edge from which they have a perfect view of the camp beneath them. 

 

It’s no wonder the camp wasn’t visible at all from the outside. There are so few fires lit, Dorian doesn’t know how anyone would find their way around down there. He can hear the voices clearer now. A few guards standing close to one of the fire pits. He sees two more slowly patrolling further away by the entrance of the camp. 

 

The Iron Bull knocks at his shoulder and then scrawls something in the ground. Dorian waits for words, but it’s an image instead - some sort of crude map. In the center is a tent - large, with a small fire to the southwest, surrounded by several tents of equal size, but Bull points to the one in the center. When Dorian looks up, he keeps his eyes open for fire. 

 

It takes a moment of adjustment, but he can spot a few faint glows about camp. One flickers dimly against a large tent, surrounded by…

 

He looks to Bull who nods in return. Zevran comes to his own conclusions. 

 

Neither of his companions look about for the others, and so neither does Dorian. If they are doing their job, as Dorian trusts them to do, they won’t be seen until precisely the moment they intend to. 

 

Still, Dorian feels restless. Every sinew of muscle within him is tensed, coiled like a loaded spring trap. Exhausting as it was, it had been so freeing, his days of battle and brilliance; a running joke, the lofty altus diving headlong into battle far quicker than his sturdier companions. Bottled fury, talent, and power bursting forth with magic for the greater good. Dorian was never very patient, and he isn’t now, even though he must be.

 

Minutes stretch into what feels like eternity. The silence of the night is only disturbed from time to time by the voices of the Qunari below or the occasional animals rustling the bushes around them. Both Bull and Zevran stay completely still beside him. If they feel the same unrest as Dorian they don’t show it. 

 

Dorian keeps his eye out for any changes at the other side of the camp. Any sign from the others. If he misses it or they react too slowly the whole plan will have been for naught. 

 

But when the signal finally comes, it’s hard to miss.

 

Flame streaking through the air in a high arch, perfectly silent until the arrow embeds itself in the chest of the first guard by the gate. Dorian wouldn’t be surprised if the shot came from Leliana herself. 

 

What follows is just as big and loud as she promised. 

 

There’s just enough time to see the fires of his allies light up as they charge towards the camp with screams and fanfare before Bull tugs at his cloak. Zevran is already on his knees, pulling a rope from his pack and fastening one end around the trunk of the tree. 

 

Bull goes down first, once again so much more silent than his size would suggest. Dorian follows quickly, bracing his feet against the crumbly earth of the slope. Just moments after he reaches the ground, Zevran lands quietly next to him. 

 

The next handful of seconds pass in such a curious way. It feels almost surreal to be back at this again - crouched beside the Iron Bull in an enemy camp, staging daring acts of heroism for the sake of the world at large. 

 

It feels as though Dorian exists an inch out of his own body, watching from afar, but indeed at once he feels as though he has never been more keen. His vision is so sharp he feels magic almost certainly must be afoot, but perhaps it is all adrenaline. 

 

Two Qunari run past, but only one doubles back; Zevran leaps and in one move mounts his back and swipes a blade across his throat. Dismounting before he collapses is a feat in and of itself. Dorian wishes he had the time to be suitably impressed.

 

Dorian is off like a shot the moment Bull moves, hastening from tent to tent. He knows when they’ve reached their mark by the way Bull grabs and yanks him behind a neighboring tent. 

 

_ He’ll have guards, definitely, _ he’d said not two hours before, arms folded at the table.  _ Won’t leave unless ordered. Or dead. _

 

Dorian sees no guards at the entrance of the tent.

 

“Maker,” he mutters, dark and roiling magic blooming in his fist. He turns as one with Bull precisely in time to throw a silent flanker to the side. The figure stepping from the shadows falls, his mouth open to scream but Dorian’s aim to the throat was true. Before he hits the ground, Bull is there to catch him, silencing him for good with a quick blade. 

 

There’s a sound behind them and Dorian turns just in time to see Zevran take out a second guard just as fast and silently as before. Dorian thrusts his staff forward to cushion the man’s fall with a gust of wind. Zevran looks up from where he’s kneeling on the dead Qunari’s back and gives him a quick nod. 

 

Bull steps up next to Dorian and motions for Zevran to look for more guards on the other side of the tent. By the sound of it, the fighting at the gate has reached new heights. They hear a loud crashing sound in the distance, followed by screams and orders yelled in Qunlat. Still, Adaar’s captors won’t stay distracted forever. 

 

Zevran comes back from the other side of the tent and nods. No more guards. At least not outside. 

 

Quickly, they make their way to the entrance of the tent. Bull holds back the heavy fabric and Dorian slips into the darkness. 

 

The smell inside almost makes him recoil immediately. It’s strong, metallic. Not unlike blood but sharper somehow. It makes him think of lyrium but even the red kind didn’t smell like this. He can hear Bull behind him take a sharp intake of breath. 

 

There’s a shuffling sound coming from the darkness in front of them and Dorian lights up his staff without hesitation. There are no more guards in here, just a figure in the corner of the tent, cowered on the ground and shielding his face from the bright light. 

 

His clothes are torn to shreds and the sound that comes out of his mouth sounds like no living creature Dorian has ever heard. But he’d recognize Adaar anywhere. 

 

He moves but before he can take his first step, Bull’s hand lands on his shoulder, holding him back. 

 

“Wait,” he says, his voice low, but Dorian is already moving to free himself. “Wait!” 

 

Dorian stumbles forward, the light of his staff creating tall shadows on the walls of the tent. He’s halfway through the room when Adaar finally turns his head. 

 

There’s something wrong with his eyes, Dorian thinks, one hand still outstretched. It’s the last thought he has before Adaar turns and lunges at him. 

 

Dorian curses, fighting his instincts to deflect and rolls instead with the lunge. The full weight of Adaar never lands on him; Dorian falls to the hard packed earth as Bull hauls Adaar back by the shoulder. Light blossoms from Dorian’s staff to wash over them all. 

 

Bull’s nostrils flare as he scoops Adaar’s massive arms behind him, pressing down. “Put that shit out!” he grunts. Dorian does.

 

Adaar lets out a noise that’s low, guttural, like a snarl worn down by the reedy scrape of a dry throat. Dorian stands with the help of his staff as Zevran approaches Adaar with something in hand. He startles when Zevran forces Adaar’s jaw apart and shoves something inside.

 

“What the fuck are you -”

 

Bull grunts as Adaar jerks in his grip, narrowly avoiding the pierce of his horns, but Zevran holds fast. He knots the makeshift gag behind Adaar’s head, rendering his growls to nearly nothing. A knot forms in Dorian’s chest at the sight. 

 

_ That’s quite enough of that. _

 

Dorian steps forward, ignoring Bull’s warning for once. He knows he won’t let go of Adaar. He reaches out, slowly but with purpose. Adaar’s eyes are wide - with fear or fury or something beyond that. He tests Bull’s grip once more before Dorian is close enough to touch him. 

 

He tries his best at a soothing sound but his chest feels tight and his throat too raw. Adaar flinches when his fingers touch him. 

 

The spell comes easier to him now than it did when Adaar taught it to him. No spectacle, no bravado. Just a simple touch, a soft tug at the Veil. 

 

“Easy,” Adaar had said to him, all those years ago. “Like breathing.” 

 

“Sleep,” Dorian tells him now, letting the magic flow through his fingertips. “It’s alright.” 

 

The magic feels as familiar as waking up next to Adaar. As the touch of his hands and the kiss of his lips. As his smile and his voice and… it’s almost enough to break his heart right there and then. 

 

Adaar goes limp in Bull’s grip, his face slack. He almost looks like himself again. Almost. 

 

“You will have to carry him.” 

 

Bull grits his teeth and nods. “Can’t fight like this, though,” he says as he hefts Adaar’s unconscious body onto his shoulders. 

 

“We will take care of it.” 


	11. Chapter 11

Despite the weight across Bull’s back, they make their retreat through the camp swiftly. The extraction plan had made allowances for little hiccups, of which there were few, all things considered. The Qunari had clearly planned for a rescue attempt as well. 

 

“Flank, left,” Bull growls, and Zevran disappears, reappearing a moment later with a bloodied blade. Bull grunts. “Both of them?”

 

“Both?” Zevran inquires as a thick arrow embeds itself into the tent pole by his head. Footsteps approach at great speed and Dorian doesn’t fully manage to dodge the hefty longbow swung at his head. He stumbles back to cradle his jaw, a powerful burning sting spreading down his neck, but there’s no time for that. 

  
He blocks the next swing with his staff, though not particularly well, and the fireball he launches from his staff seems only to singe their assailant’s eyebrows. 

 

Valiantly, they fight for duty and for purpose. Dorian fights for his husband.

 

The archer lunges at him as if he wants to run straight through him. For all Dorian knows that might just be the case. He only has a split second to decide before he sidesteps, leaving his attacker run into empty air with too much force. He’s unbalanced and when Dorian rams his staff into the ground, the wave of lightning does the rest. Before he has the time to get up, Zevran leaps and buries his dagger in his throat. 

 

The sound of fighting is coming closer and when Dorian looks up he sees the orange glow of fires over the tents and reaching up into the night sky. 

 

“The beach,” Bull grunts as he readjusts the mass of Adaar on his shoulders. “Let’s go.” 

 

Dorian hesitates for a moment, head still turned towards where the fighting seems to be the thickest. But Bull is right. Adaar can’t walk and they made a plan for that for a reason. 

 

Later, the way out of the camp is just a blur of fighting. Waves of attackers trying to stop them. The glint of Zevran’s blades. Hurling spell after spell until he feels lightheaded and his arms grow heavy from the weight of his staff. 

 

It’s only when they’ve reached the dunes that Dorian dares to look back. Pride seizes his heart at the sight. Half the tents are on fire already and even from this distance it’s clear what the outcome of the battle will be. 

 

After the light of the fires, the way through the dunes seems especially dark but Zevran leads them safely to the narrow sandy beach beyond them. Just like promised, there’s a boat waiting for them. One of Isabela’s men, a burly dwarf with an impressive beard and most of his left hand missing, waves them over silently when he spots them coming over the last dune. 

 

Two qunari, an elf, a man, and a dwarf bundle into the remarkably sturdy paddle boat and Isabela’s man pushes them off the shore. Bull lowers Addar to the floor; Dorian helps, though he knows it isn’t necessary. 

 

He drops himself as well when Bull takes up the oars to move them swiftly off to the Siren just around the craggy bend.

  
“Careful,” Bull mutters, broad back expanding with each precise stroke. 

 

Dorian pays him little mind, crouching beside Adaar’s prostrate form. He situates himself further, resting his staff longways down the boat and nestling up to the bench that digs into his back as he resettles on the floor. “Come here,” he murmurs to Adaar, fast asleep, and squeezes a leg between his massive shoulders and the bench. Mindful of the horns, Dorian gentles Adaar’s head into his lap. “Water?” he asks, looking up.

 

Zevran extends a flask in his direction and Dorian takes it, tipping Adaar’s chin up and ungagging him, tossing the wretched implement aside. He coaxes Adaar’s jaw to unclench. “There you are,” he says, slowly easing a stream of water into Adaar’s mouth. With the rock of the boat and the dark swath of sky, he spills a little down his husband’s chin, rivulets running down his neck. He is feverish, too, and so once the flask is empty, he runs a cool icy hand over his forehead.

 

He makes a sound in his sleep, a deep sigh that sounds so like him. Like he’s always sounded. 

 

Not at all like the person who lunged at him in that tent, eyes wild and eerily empty at the same time. 

 

Dorian puts his hand on his broad chest. He can feel his hot, feverish skin through what’s left of his tunic. But underneath that, steady and reassuring, his heartbeat. He’s alive. Adaar is alive. 

 

He takes a deep breath, slowly as not to give in to the sob building in his chest. His hand moves up to cup the side of Adaar’s face. As long as he’s alive, as long as they’re together… They’ll get through everything that comes afterwards.

 

Dorian doesn’t even notice the dark mass of the Siren appears ahead of them until he can hear the waves lapping at the wooden hull of the ship. Getting the still unconscious Adaar onboard is a far more difficult and undignified affair than he would have liked but in the end, all he can feel is relief. 

 

“He needs time,” Bull grunts, lugging Adaar over his shoulders again. The look he gives Dorian is stern. “He’ll need to be contained. Somewhere easy to subdue.”

 

A muscle ticks in Dorian’s jaw.

 

“Sounds about right,” says Isabela, fists on her hips. On a proper ship, her poise and hat fit seamlessly. Would that Dorian had the heart to appreciate it. Quite brazenly for one he’s met but twice, and Adaar likely even less, she steps up to his slack jawed face and lifts a lid to examine his eye. “Qamek, is it? Oh alright, alright. There’s no need for posturing, my love.” 

 

Dorian realizes then that he’s lurched one step forward just as Bull has straightened to his full height. He can’t quite figure to whom she was speaking as she backs off, both hands in the air. “I’ve got a room for him.”

 

“I would like -” Dorian starts, and clears his throat when his words crack down the center. “I’d like him to stay with me.”

 

“Nah,” Bull counters, trudging after Isabela as she starts up a brisk pace along the mostly dark and bustling deck. “Not right now you don’t. Trust me.”

 

“Don’t patronize me.” Promptly, Dorian follows, leaving a forgotten Zevran behind. 

 

“He’s not gonna be happy when this shit leaves his system and he finds out you’ve seen him like this.”

 

“And we’ll get through it like civilized people,” Dorian snipes.

 

Isabela opens a door, letting Bull and Dorian through and down a staircase. “I’ve got experience with the stuff,” she says, leading them deep into the belly of the ship. “It’s not going to be pretty. And depending on how long they’ve been exposing him to it…” 

 

“No time for worst case scenarios,” Bull says, waiting for her to unlock a second door. 

 

The room beyond is dark and Dorian creates a small ball of light before Isabela reaches for the candles. It’s part of the cargo hold. Big wooden crates and burlap sacks have been pushed into the corners, making space by the far wall for a bedroll and several blankets. When Dorian spots the chains bolted into the wall, he shakes his head. 

 

“Absolutely not.” 

 

“You’re smarter than this,” Bull says as he carefully puts Adaar down on the bedroll. “It’s for his own protection.” 

 

Dorian scoffs, gripping his staff a little tighter. “I’ve heard that before.” 

 

“You saw what happened back at the camp.” 

 

Dorian doesn’t miss the way Isabela raises an eyebrow. “Perhaps not the strangest reaction after what he has been through,” he says quickly, moving closer to Adaar, willing to snatch the chains from Bull if necessary. 

 

Bull sits back on his heels and watches him for a moment. Something hard and unyielding in his expression softens a bit. “Chances are he’s not going to be himself when he wakes up. Maybe he won’t mind you seeing him like that. But if he hurt you? Even just accidentally?” 

 

Dorian looks down on Adaar’s sleeping face. “I won’t leave him.”

 

“You look like you’re up for it, at least,” Isabela says, tossing a hand up. “I wouldn’t be the one to wipe your bloodstains from the walls…. What? Too tasteless?”

 

Making himself comfortable against the wall at Adaar’s side, Dorian lays his staff across his lap. “I don’t suppose you have any water to spare.”

 

“I’m sure I could find something.” Bull stands, clapping Dorian heavily on the shoulder as he goes. Dorian turns his face to Adaar as the door clicks and locks behind them. 

 

His great chest stutters with its rise and fall, his face clammy as though each breath alone pains him. Tutting softly, Dorian pulls the handkerchief from his pocket and turns to face Adaar. “The state of you,” he murmurs, dabbing at the sweat pooled above Adaar’s upper lip, the dip of his temples. His face is aflame with fever, and Dorian has some trouble swallowing past the lump in his throat.

 

Carefully, he attempts to cover his husband with the thin blankets folded in the corner, but each brush of fabric makes him flinch.

 

In the past, Adaar had to nurse him back to health far more often than the other way around. Dorian thinks back on unpleasant nights when the cursed Fereldan cold had seemed to creep into his very bones - only made better by Adaar’s presence and his famous chicken broth. 

 

Adaar himself almost never got sick. The only time Dorian can remember having to take care of him like this was right after the Exalted Council. He thought he’d lose him then, too. Stumbling out of that eluvian, clutching what was left of his arm. The infection and the fever that followed took the last of his strength. 

 

But even that had not been as bad as this. 

 

Adaar shivers violently, his teeth clattering as if he wasn’t burning up. 

 

Bull returns with water and a poultice smelling strongly of elfroot and other herbs. “Rub some on his temples if he can stand it,” he tells Dorian as he hands him both. “Should help with the fever.”

 

“Is there no healer on board?” 

 

Bull shakes his head. “Magic would hurt him even more, trust me. He’s gonna be sensitive to it for a while.” 

 

With a quiet series of curses, Dorian does as instructed, the weight of Bull’s gaze on his back.

 

“If you have nothing to say -”

 

“You’re doing good.” 

 

Startled back from his bite of frustration, Dorian glances over his shoulder. Bull stands with his arms folded across his chest, leaning against the door. “Oh, just in general, or were you mesmerized by my impeccable grooming.”

 

The Iron Bull grins as he scratches at his beard, thicker than Dorian remembers. The lines around Bull’s face are the same as they have ever been, but he looks good. “You’re doing good, Dorian. What you’ve been up to in Tevinter. What you’re doing for the Boss. You’re good.”

 

With no immediate words to grapple, Dorian turns back to Adaar, softly massaging elfroot into his temples. 

 

“Yes, well.”

 

“Just take the compliment, pretty boy.”

 

Dorian can feel himself tense up, just for a moment before he takes a shaky deep breath. His shoulders slump. He feels like he’s being weighed down by heavy stones, making it difficult to do as much as sit upright. 

 

There’s no one to deceive here, no one who needs to be impressed. Bull has certainly seen him in worse states than this. 

 

Perhaps it’s the familiarity of it all - as much as he hates the thought. Or perhaps it’s just the exhaustion finally catching up with him. 

 

“Thank you,” he finally says, keeping his back to Bull and his hands cupping Adaar’s face. “For everything.” 

 

He can hear Bull move around him, the floorboards creaking underneath his weight. “No need. He’d have done the same for any of us.” 


	12. Chapter 12

Dorian doesn’t think he fell asleep. Not really. How could he when every movement and every groan from Adaar makes his chest feel so tight with worry? But somewhere in the dark of the night and the gentle swaying of the ship he must have lost some time. Only slivers of it, lost between the lapping of the waves and the creaking of the hull. 

 

When he opens his eyes, his neck feels stiff and the cold of the night seems to have crept into his bones. He moves slowly, one hand already reaching up to massage his aching neck, when the realization hits him, just a moment too slowly. 

 

Adaar’s head is no longer in his lap.  

 

Instantly on alert, Dorian’s eyes leap to scan the room and finds the hulking shape of Adaar staring at him from across the room. 

 

“Amatus -” he breathes, taking in the flare of Adaar’s nostrils, his dilated pupils. The way his bloodied nails dig into the boards of the cabin floor. “Your fingers...”

 

With a low and raspy growl, Adaar prowls forward, bloodshot eyes boring into Dorian’s every inch of the way. Dorian swallows, though his throat is so dry and dusty as to make it uncomfortable, and presses his back with futile lack of thought further against the wall. 

 

“This isn’t quite as enticing as it could be,” Dorian murmurs, keeping his tone light even as Adaar’s jagged nails scrape across the floor by his sides. He doesn’t dare drag his legs up against his chest, though his instincts demand it; purposefully, perhaps stupidly, he leaves himself vulnerable and prone. 

 

His heart feels like it’s going to beat out of his chest, an instinctive fear coiled tight in his gut. A part of him tells him to run, to save himself. But even when he looks at Adaar’s face, the strange twisted mask of it, he can’t help but look through it all. Behind the horror and the fear there’s the face of the man he loves. His husband with his kind eyes and thoughtful smile. 

 

He takes a deep breath, shaky as it is, and doesn’t move. Adaar comes closes until Dorian can smell the metallic scent of lyrium mixed with the elfroot he massaged into his temples. Until he can feel the heat of his fever. 

 

“Amatus,” Dorian says again, almost surprised by the steadiness of his own voice. 

 

Adaar stops. It’s not recognition that Dorian sees in his eyes but confusion. Perhaps it’s only uncertainty brought on by Dorian neither running nor fighting. Perhaps it’s something else. 

 

Dorian says his name, softly. He resists the urge to reach for Adaar, remembering that even a light blanket on his skin seemed to hurt him.  There’s a nauseating sound as Adaar digs his ruined nails into the wooden floor by his sides. 

 

“You ought to rest, my love,” Dorian murmurs, slowly lifting his hand from the floor level with his hip. With a subtle flick of the wrist, Adaar’s eyes go hazy and his elbows wobble under a sleeping spell. His upper body falls heavily onto Dorian’s legs, his head cushioned by Dorian’s lap. 

 

With a quiet grunt, Dorian shifts the base of Adaar’s horns from his gut, sitting up further against the wall and forming a cradle with his thighs. A slow breath pushes from Dorian’s lips as he runs feather-light fingertips over the curve of Adaar’s skull. 

 

He needs horn balm and soothing oils, the medicinal creams Dorian keeps back in Minrathous. He needs the wide soft stretch of Dorian’s bed, the thin protection of a gossamer canopy and month’s rest. He needs water most of all, but Dorian is remiss to shift his head any which way that does not have him breathing deep and weathered breaths against Dorian’s thigh.

 

When the Iron Bull returns some time later, Dorian presses a finger to his lips. Wordlessly, Bull crouches down and lays a cool fold of cloth over the back of Adaar’s neck. 

 

Dorian is glad for the silence, at least for a while. He doesn’t need to be reminded of his own foolishness. If presented with the choice of staying with Adaar for a second time, he still wouldn’t hesitate but there’s a nagging feeling in the back of his mind that perhaps Bull was right to warn him. 

 

He just doesn’t need to hear him say it. 

 

As long as he doesn’t fall asleep again…

 

The hours pass slowly - the only constant the soft sway of the ship and Adaar’s deep breathing. Dorian’s eyes sting from exhaustion, his body stiff after staying still under his husband’s weight for so long. But his worries keep him awake, his thoughts a confusing combination of hopeful daydreaming and agonizing fear of what’s to come. 

 

Adaar’s fever breaks sometime around sunrise, long fingers of warm light creeping in through the cracks in the wooden ceiling above them just as Dorian lets out a sigh of relief. His position on the floor is awkward and he still doesn’t dare moving too much but he manages to pull a thin blanket closer to them and over Adaar’s body. This time, he doesn’t fight it. 

 

At last, his exhaustion catches up with him. In one moment Dorian feels himself drifting off with an aching spine, and in the next he plummets into wakefulness with a jolt as the heavy weight in his lap shifts.

 

Only for a moment does he think it a dream, coming to his senses in a breathtaking instant when the sturdy base of Adaar’s horns bump into his gut. A grunt escapes his lungs before he even thinks to stop it, and Dorian’s entire body turns to stone. 

 

Arms trembling with effort, Adaar plants both hands against the ground at Dorian’s side to push himself up. He doesn’t make it far, and his eyes are bleary and unfocused, and - although Dorian had always been taught never to look a predator in the eye - he meets Adaar’s. 

 

“Amatus,” he breathes, ducking his head only a little to get a better look at Adaar’s pupils. “Are you with me?”

 

Adaar’s brow furrows and he wobbles on his elbows, his weighty head falling to Dorian’s chest. “Nngh.”

 

He can feel Adaar’s breathing, see the rise of his back and shoulders. Then, Adaar makes another sound, his voice too hoarse to make out any words. If he speaks any words at all, that is. 

 

“Amatus,” Dorian says, his own voice steady despite the lump in his throat. “Please.”

 

Adaar’s elbows finally buckle under his weight and Dorian moves to catch him but he’s already falling to the side, rolling off his lap and onto the wooden floor. Dorian has enough time to cushion his heavy hands with his hands before he hits the ground. 

 

Adaar’s gaze is unfocused, darts around the room before finally settling on Dorian. For a moment that feels so long Dorian almost thinks he can’t bear it, Adaar’s looks confused. There’s no recognition in his eyes, nothing familiar. 

 

For a moment, he thinks he has lost him.

 

Then, a sound from his lips that Dorian thinks could be his name, followed by a violent cough. 

 

Quickly, he reaches for the water next to him, his heart beating out of his chest. “Hush. Wait. Don’t…” 

 

Giving him water is more difficult than expected. After a few unsuccessful attempts, Dorian drenches a clean piece of cloth in water and holds it to Adaar’s cracked lips. 

 

“Here. In your own time, amatus.” 

 

The whole process is exhausting. Perhaps even being awake. He can see it in the way Adaar’s knits his brows, the sheen of sweat on his forehead. His endless patience running thin. 

 

Dorian talks him through it. Soft words spoken in a softer voice. Nonsense, really. Afterwards, he can’t remember half of it. 

 

When sleep pulls Adaar back under, Dorian tells himself that his breathing sound calmer already. That his face looks a little more peaceful than before. 

 

Worry still makes it difficult to think straight. 

 


	13. Chapter 13

Over what feels like hours, Adaar drifts in and out of consciousness. When he’s awake, Dorian makes him drink and speaks to him. When he’s asleep, Dorian pulls up the blanket and holds his hand. 

 

He knows he should get Bull or perhaps even Isabela but he can’t bear the thought of leaving Adaar alone like this. Not when there’s a possibility that he could wake up again and find Dorian no longer by his side. 

 

He wishes, briefly but utterly, that he knew a single lullaby.

 

When Adaar finally comes to with recognition in his eyes, the Iron Bull is urging Dorian on a low but insistent breath, to get something to eat. He flinches awake, breathing reedy but stable, and for the fourth time that day Dorian holds his face in both hands and checks his pupils. 

 

He says something that comes out as little more than a rasp, but Dorian can read his name on those lips. “Yes, my darling,” he murmurs, reaching for the water flask. “I am here.”

 

Adaar drinks, one hand loosely covering Dorian’s who holds the canteen for him to drink. Bull crouches down beside them and briskly checks his pulse and temperature. “Seems to be stable,” he grunts, nodding to himself. “Fever’s broken. Heart’s sluggish, but that’s normal. I’d give him another day’s rest before he’s walking again. Boss always was quick to jump back.”

 

“That he was,” Dorian says, an old pride swelling in his chest. He almost laughs with the surprise of it. 

 

“Captain says it should be another two or three days until we reach Denerim.”

 

Dorian looks up. “Denerim?” 

 

“I almost forgot you haven’t left this room in days. You’d have notice that Fereldan cold by now. Krem made me those really nice gloves last year but they got some blood on them when -” 

 

“Bull, why are we going to Denerim?” 

 

“Best to stay low for a while until we get word from Leliana. We stayed at sea for as long as we could but we need to restock and the boss here needs a proper bed. And the Inquisition still has some friends in Ferelden. Discrete ones. Not so easily intimidated.” 

 

Dorian smiles. “I certainly would not want to be the Qunari warrior trying to cross Queen Anora.”

 

“She’d have the best of us quaking in their boots.” 

 

Dorian draws his fingers over the growing beard at Adaar’s jaw. “I don’t suppose that her Highness’ palace is terribly discrete.”

 

“Not very,” Bull agrees with his lofty sort of amusement. Dorian sighs. 

 

“That would be my luck, wouldn’t it.”

 

He tilts with the hand Bull claps over his shoulder. “Ahh, you’re tougher than you look. After all this time in a dingy inn and the belly of a ship, a brothel won’t be the death of you.”

 

Dorian allows himself to sulk as Bull gathers up a tray and the water skins to refill, leaning carefully over Adaar’s horns to watch him disappear back up the steps. “Oh yes, of course it had to be a brothel!”

  
  
  
  
  
  


Apparently, it did.

 

Or at least it was preferable. The workers were discrete to those outside, if not amongst each other, and both Isabela and Zevran seemed to have ties aplenty within. Not one to turn up his nose at good fortune, Dorian welcomes the private room with all its mock silks and curtains - if not for himself, then for his husband. 

 

Adaar grows stronger every day, even though it’s a long and slow process. It takes a while until he can keep any food down and by the time he’s able to enjoy the cook’s Fereldan interpretation of Orlesian cuisine, he’s lost a considerable amount of weight. There are still dark shadows underneath his eyes but his warm smile is so familiar that it makes Dorian’s heart beat faster every time he sees it. 

 

“Isabela has promised to smuggle in some Rivaini treats,” Dorian tells him as he sits down across from him at the small table where they eat their meals. “Since she keeps bragging about her contacts.”

 

Adaar smiles and helps himself to a second piece of chicken. His appetite is returning, slowly but surely. “You suspect her of exaggerating?” 

 

“I wouldn’t dream of it! The wine she procured from us had surely been at least close to Antiva at some point.” 

 

“I wouldn’t know.” 

 

“You will just have to trust my expert judgment until you’re strong enough for anything other than tea, amatus.” 

 

He’s fussing and he knows it. Adaar bears it with amusement and fond smiles. Dorian only needs to look at the loose fit of his clothes and the way he still moves so carefully around the pains and aches captivity left him with to feel that dread that’s so familiar to him now. He decides he’s allowed to fuss over him a little. 

 

There are some things they don’t talk about. Memories they avoid like poison. Just remembering is too painful and Dorian knows they both have enough nightmares to make up for it. 

 

At night, he keeps his husband close, his arms around him just to feel his presence. His beating heart. Here, in the anonymity of Denerim’s finest establishment, he doesn’t fear the return of Adaar’s captors as much as he fears Adaar just slipping away. Even as he grows stronger with every day, Dorian finds himself waking in the middle of the night just to make sure he’s still breathing beside him. 

 

“When all of this is over,” Dorian says one morning, reaching for Adaar’s hand over the breakfast table, “come with me to Tevinter.” 

 

Adaar looks up, surprise plain on his face. 

 

“We’ve been foolish, amatus. Staying apart for so long. I know I was the one to suggest it. But now…” 

 

“Of course.” Adaar’s smile is warm and open and Dorian doesn’t know why he ever feared he might refuse.

 

“It will be a delicious scandal of course,” Dorian says. He know he should release Adaar’s hand and allow him to continue his breakfast. “The last time you stayed with me for longer than a few weeks, Aurarius almost choked on his own wagging tongue.”

 

“I remember.” 

 

“And the time before that…” Dorian draws his thumb over each and every precious knuckle on Adaar’s hand. “Well. You were only passing through, weren’t you?”

 

“I was in Minrathous for a little more than a day.”

 

Dorian scoffs, but pushes the larger half of his tangerine over to Adaar’s side of the table to show he means no harm. “It would be generous to call it even a full night. You were in and out so fast I wasn’t sure I saw the whites of your eyes. And, well.” He sniffs. “Maevaris tells me I was inconsolable afterwards, but you can’t believe half of the theatrics that fall out of her pretty head, can you?”

 

Adaar’s smile widens, not even trying to hide his fondness. “I would love to stay. For however long we need to.” 

 

“Long then,” Dorian says without a pause and keeps holding on to Adaar’s hand. “And longer still, if possible.” 

 

He can see it all clearly now, here at the breakfast table. Years stretching out in front of them, the flow of time and fate as unpredictable as ever. But with Adaar as his constant by his side, he doesn’t think there is anything he couldn’t face. 

**Author's Note:**

> Byacolate is writing a gay comic about a wandering bard! [Check it out from the beginning HERE!](https://bardbouquet.tumblr.com/post/179195348759/a-dwarven-heirloom-a-blade-in-the-dark-and-a)
> 
>  
> 
> Title taken from Michael O'Siadhail's poem "Between". 
> 
> Byacolate's Tumblr: [wardencommando](http://wardencommando.tumblr.com/).  
> mywordsflyup's Tumblr: [damnable-rogue](http://damnable-rogue.tumblr.com/)  
> 


End file.
